She nods. No hesitation. “I trust you.”
“Good girl.” I press a quick kiss to her lips and turn to her brother. “I need you to stay here and keep hidden with Harlow. He doesn’t know you and wouldn’t think for you to be here, unlike Ollie. When he’s distracted, I want you to get to Rachel and run back to Haven. Tell Anthony what’s happening; he’ll know what to do.”
Tobias nods and squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t get yourself or my sister killed,” he says as he grabs Harlow and sinks deeper behind the tree.
My lips kick up into a wry smirk. “That’s the plan.” I turn to Ollie. “Ready?”
She nods, a determined expression on her face.
I blow out a breath and brace myself before stepping out from the tree and directly into Mark’s line of sight.
Let the fun begin.
The Reluctant Villain
Alex
“Iknow you’re outthere, Rhys. Show yourself, or I'll start shooting. And bring the girl, Ollie, with you.”
I don’t think I could hate a man more than I do Mark at this moment.
He stands in front of us, pistol drawn and pointed straight at us with steady hands. While he’s acting like this is some awful thing he has no choice in doing, there’s a cold, calculating gleam in his eyes that has my skin crawling and rage stirring in my chest.
It’s bad enough that he’s caught me and Theo, but now Rhys andOllie?
It makes me almost feral as I glare daggers at him whileswallowing a snarl.
I want to slam my fist into his face over and over until it’s nothing more than a bloody mess of bone and meat. Or shout for my best friend and the love of my life to run. But I don’t. Mostly because it’ll be a waste of breath. Neither one of them will run from a fight or leave me and Theo to die.
Doesn’t stop my heart from stuttering the moment Rhys, and then Ollie, step out from behind cover.
Rhys has a blank expression on his face, but his eyes are filled with cold fury as he steps up with his hands raised. Ollie, meanwhile, looks terrified, her face drained of blood and her lips pressed together into a grim line. But there’s a stubborn determination in the way she juts her chin out and the lack of tremor in her limbs as she follows Rhys’s pose.
Despite the dire circumstances, pride swells in my chest at her bravery.
Her gaze narrows when she sees me and Theo standing in front of Mark, zeroing in on my cheek. The bullet graze is still bleeding, a steady flow of warm liquid trickling down my jaw and neck, but the pain is barely there. Especially when I have bigger things to worry about.
Theo tenses and curses softly beside me, and I silently echo his thoughts. This is the worst-case scenario, with the chances of us getting out of this alive plummeting by the second.
And then it gets worse.
“Glad to see you’re still a reasonable man, Rhys,” Mark says upon seeing him and Ollie. “But I’m going to have to ask you to drop your weapons—you too, Ollie—or I’m afraid this will get messy.”
And then, by some unseen signal, two men—Lodge members, I assume—step out from behind a large tree on my left. One wields a shotgun while the other has a wicked-looking machete that belongs in a jungle, not cold, wet Britain. They silently step behind Theo and me, and my body stiffens as the sharp point of the machete presses against my spine.
Rhys clenches his jaw and his eyes flash, but he doesn’t argue as he methodically strips off his weapons. Ollie follows suit at a slower pace,and it’s like being back in that bloody alleyway with Ethan and his cronies. Only this is worse because it’s not just my and Ollie’s lives at stake, but my best friends’ lives, too.
My hands clench into fists as hot, acrid frustration bubbles up at just howuselessI am.
The machete jabs harder into my back, causing me to grunt. Mark’s eyes flick to me, a frown on his weathered face as he studies me with those calculating eyes.
“I didn’t send him, you know,” he says casually.
My teeth grind together as I fight not to growl at him like a pissed-off bear. “Send who?”
“Ethan.” That knowing gaze snaps to Ollie, gauging her reaction. It’s so jarring and unlike the man I’ve known for the past several months that I struggle to marry the two versions of him together. “He acted without orders and almost put my entire operation in jeopardy. All for a bit of pussy,” he scoffs and shakes his head. “Men like that make poor leaders and even worse soldiers.”
Ollie tries her best to school her expression, but she can’t hide the faint flinch at Mark’s use of the wordpussy. Even though the bastard is dead, he still haunts her.
